A LIFE SENTENCE.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18430, 10 July 1925, Page 9

A LIFE SENTENCE.

JURY'S UNUSUAL REQUEST. (Bt' CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATIOK—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN AND N.B. CABLE ASSOCIATION.) BRISBANE, July 9. Oliver Johnson Duck, found guuTy of tho murder of his daughter, Olive, has been sentenced to life-imprison-ment, with hard labour. On Tuesday evening tho jury, foreseeing they would bo locked up all night, asked to be allowed to break tho monotony by attending a picture show. By permission of tho Judge, and at the expense of the Crown, the 12 jurors, escorted by police, occupied seats in the dress circle, and witnessed a Wild West production in which most of the characters, except the hero and heroine, were slain or wounded.

In the course of the trial the police produced a confession made to them by Duck, giving pathetic details as to how his daughter pleaded with him not to shoot her. When he pointed the revolver at her she screamed, and, refusing to be quiet, h 0 tired and shot her dead. Then he strapped the body to a saddle and rods 37 miles through tho night and buried his daughter at dawn.

[The girl had been reared by her grandmother, and Duck had expressed tho wish to claim her and to put her in a convent. Accompanied bv tho police Duck showed where, lie hid tho revolver with which the deed was committed.]